-for digna ochoa, environmental activist
guerrero, 1998.
mushroom clouds of fresh sawdust,
creekside castrations
of newly-sawed timber.
the stench of toddlers
who
have drowned
in
their own nope.
bodies scarecrow in a shuttered breeze.
the
riot of soldiers betrays confusion.
rodolfo
grins, tips a most confident sombrero,
as
field-worn pants become twin bastions,
to
propel the hasty roadblock.
an
ancient forest ascends, scrums
of
pine
gasping
for brotherhood.
let’s
make love to our god,
as
old as the moon, yet wiser.
let
us caress her brawny trunk,
massage
her bountiful limbs.
let
us remind her
that
she is more sacred than profit,
more salient than stock values,
and
more enduring than bonus checks.
this
land is not their land,
they whose pockets reflect settled privilege,
the
ease of corruption, the denial
of promise.
this
land belongs to meso-amerika,
pre-capitalist,
pre-nafta,
pre-pri. its stewards, gaunt peasants
clad
in mojado beckonings
and
sweatshop realities,
clinging,
like tight jeans,
to the skin
to the skin
of
parochial revolution.
mexico
city, 2001.
your
office is empty now; the plastic
curtains
have been dutifully closed.
a
single crown of weeping geraniums
lays
at the heart of your desk.
perhaps
you, digna, who recognized
that
anger at the suffering of others
is
the most powerful social force, had to be killed
to
stir up the outrage in sleeping consumers
festooned
in trivialities. perhaps you, digna,
had
to be sacrificed by a noble cause
for that cause to breathe a new lease on life.
still,
your murder makes no sense
rather
dollars and pesos
for
stock-market vaqueros.
you
will continue to pace our memories
like
an angel that sleepwalks,
as pine forests ascend, scrums
of pine
gasping for brotherhood.
as pine forests ascend, scrums
of pine
gasping for brotherhood.
